Chancellor's Parashah Commentary

Parashat Hayyei Sarah
Genesis 23:1 - 25:18
November 6, 1993

Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

God willing, I shall be in Israel when you read my thoughts on this
week's parasha. I leave Sunday evening to attend the commencement of the
Seminary's Beit Midrash in Jerusalem on November 3, at which we will
confer some twenty-five degrees to Israeli students who have completed
their course of studies either as rabbis, teachers, or community center
workers. These young Israelis, and those who preceded them and those who
will follow them, will in due time mainstream Conservative Judaism in
Israel, thereby creating the reality of a religious alternative to Orthodoxy.

Hayyei Sarah is a timely text for a visit to Israel, because it records
Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron as a burial site
for his wife Sarah. The length of the narrative suggests just how
important the Torah regarded the acquisition of this first piece of real
estate by Abraham, after so much wandering in Eretz Yisrael. Eventually,
tradition made it the resting place of four ancient couples: Adam and
Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. I still
remember vividly visiting this holy site, located today in the precincts
of a large mosque and marked by eight gigantic caskets above ground, back
in the heady days of July 1967.

A remarkable rabbinic homily picks up on the Torah's attentiveness to
Abraham's economic transaction with Ephron the Hittite. "This is one of
three places where the nations of the world cannot accuse Israel of
theft;" the other two being the Temple Mount purchase by David
(Chronicles I, 21:25), and a parcel of land in Shechem bought by Jacob
(Genesis 33:19). That is, all three spots were not gained by force of
arms but legally through a bona fide sale.

A similar and better-known midrash opens Rashi's commentary to the
Torah. "Rabbi Yitzhak declared that the Torah should have really begun
with the commandment in Exodus 12:2, `This month shall mark for you the
beginning of the months.' For this commandment (pertaining to Passover)
was the first one given to Israel. Then why did the Torah open with
creation? `He revealed to His people His powerful works, in giving them
the heritage of nations (Psalms, 111:5).' In other words, if the nations
of the world should denounce Israel as a band of thieves saying: `You
are the ones who conquered and took away the territory of the seven
nations,' Israel can respond: `The whole world belongs to God. He
created it and gave it to those who were upright in His eyes. It was His
will to give them [the nations] the land originally and it was His will
to take it away from them and give it to us.'"

Both midrashim are defensive and apologetic in tone, indicating that they
are rooted in a historical context. They seem to preserve echoes of an
ancient debate, not unlike that of our own day, over the legitimacy of
Jewish dominion over Eretz Yisrael. And, indeed, the size and power of
the far-flung Jewish community in the Greco-Roman era gave rise to
constant friction and periodic bloodshed. Palestine had long been home
to many national groups. Under the Maccabees and their Hasmonean
descendants in the second century B.C.E., the Jewish state embarked on an
ambitious policy of military expansion and unprecedented forced
conversion to create a rejuvenated and formidable Jewish state, which did
not come under Roman rule till 63 B.C.E. Despite the political reversal
in Palestine, Judaism continued to advance demographically and
religiously throughout the Roman empire. By the first century C.E., Jews
accounted for no less than one-tenth of the population of the empire,
according to the estimate of historian Salo Baron.Moreover, this Jewish
minority was assertive and contrary. Three times within the span of
seven decades it threatened Roman might with major uprisings -- first in
66 C.E. in Palestine, then in 115 C.E. across North Africa, and finally
in 131 C.E. under Bar Kochba in Palestine. While the cumulative effect
of these rebellions may have halted further Roman expansion eastward
towards the Parthians, they also diminished the luster of Judaism for
non-Jews, reversing a long trend of religious diffusion.

Rabbinic literature resonates with the tension of this worldwide conflict
between two proud cultures and contrasting religious systems. Rabbinic
leaders often read the stories of Genesis in light of their own turmoil,
with the two midrashim I have cited as a striking example.

And yet, I would argue, these two midrashim do not pervert the biblical
text; they deepen it. The question of Rabbi Yitzhak, and Rashi for that
matter, demands an answer. Why does the Torah, which is primarily a
legal corpus, albeit religious in nature, take the detour to recount
anything prior to Moses and the exodus from Egypt? What is the purpose
of a narrative framework that takes us swiftly and artfully from creation
of the world through the beginnings of humankind to the sagas of our own
ancestors?

The two midrashim suggest reading B'reishit as a preamble to the Torah, a
historical document that lays claim to the land of Canaan for the
children of Abraham. Whatever the charges may have been in the
Greco-Roman period, the Torah itself, at a much earlier date, felt
impelled to justify the appropriation of a land that was not without
inhabitants. B'reishit abounds with traces that bespeak a polemic for
possession.

To begin with, the main plot of the book is the promise by God to each
patriarch that this ancient land will eventually be settled by their
progeny. Second, the promise is reinforced by the scandalous tales we
have already read which seek to discredit the claims of the nations of
Canaan (Gen. 9:18-29) and Moab and Amnon (Gen. 19:30-38) by associating
their origins with acts of incest.

Finally, the entire book turns subtly on the motif of the rejection of
the first-born. Repeatedly, God bestows favor and blessings on the
younger sibling. It is Abel's sacrifice and not Cain's that God finds
acceptable, although Cain was the first to make an offering (Gen.
4:3-5). Neither Isaac nor Jacob nor Joseph nor Judah gain supremacy by
virtue of being born first. Genesis reads like a novel of family
intrigue driven by the absence of any clear principle of succession, and
I cannot help but see this level playing field as an indirect rebuke of
native Canaanites who based their right to the land on the argument that
they were the first to settle it. For the Torah it is moral virtue, and
not chronology or primogeniture, that constitute a valid territorial
claim. God's freedom of action is not curbed by mechanical rules.

I am not suggesting for a minute that this political argument is the only
reason that B'reishit opens the Torah. The text is too complex and
multivalent to allow for a single interpretation. But the political
thrust is definitely present and pervasive; witness the way Rashi opens
his commentary to the Torah.

It is truly amazing that the offspring of Abraham have settled the land
of Israel three times in sufficient numbers to create a powerful Jewish
commonwealth. Each time they came upon a land that was not without
native inhabitants and each time they were forced to share it. Perhaps
our historical mission is not to achieve a model of social justice and
political equality for a society that is homogeneous, a task difficult
enough, but for one that is decidedly mixed, which is the more common
human condition.